


The Hero's Appraisal

by LadyRavenEye



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 19:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16939002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRavenEye/pseuds/LadyRavenEye
Summary: Tortall Recall asked for a Chamber of the Ordeal origin fic so you know I had to do it to 'em.





	The Hero's Appraisal

There are many who wish to be heroes. Rich and poor, proud and humble - a hero needs no class or race or gender to be.

That is why I am here. That is why I have always been here.

If I was born, I do not remember. If I can die, I do not know how.

I have been many things. A cloud, a crone, a coincidence. There are many tests. There are as many outcomes.

Despite what most believe, a hero need not be good, or pure, or righteous. There is always a cost, and all you must do to pass through me is pay it.

The ones who come to me now, they all have training. Most are disciplined enough to pay the price. But there are always those who will not bend themselves.

And so they break.

It happened more often, before. There is a reason youngest sons had more luck than oldest. There is a reason paupers had more luck than princes.

Perhaps it is not luck. I do not know the souls of humans. I am here to test them and to judge them, not to know them.

Now they call me a chamber. A man who passed through me settled here and made himself a king. His people built walls around me, and then a legend, thicker than the stone. I make their knights, or I break them. At times I hand out a hero's quest. Those are their own sort of price.

I will be here long after the stone walls around me crumble to dust. I will be here so long as those who would be heroes find me.

Perhaps, when they are gone, I will be gone as well.


End file.
